Myriad Pictures announced today that Jessica Alba is in final negotiations to star in Weightless, an original screenplay from Academy Award-nominated writer and first-time director Milo Addica (Monster’s Ball, Birth, The King). Alba will play the female lead of American astronaut, Maysie Overall. Myriad Pictures will begin pre-selling the film at the Berlin Film Festival this week.
Weightless is set in the near-future and is the story of Maysie Overall, a female astronaut who has dreamt of exploring outer space her whole life. Just as she is about to fulfill her life-long dream, she is unwittingly the cause of a tragic, fatal motorcycle accident. Rather than risk losing the opportunity to join the space shuttle’s next mission, Maysie chooses to ignore her conscience and flees the scene of the accident. Following the space shuttle’s successful flight, an unexpected mechanical failure causes the shuttle to crash on re-entry to earth. Maysie miraculously survives the crash. Once on the road to recovery, Maysie’s survival against the odds begins to needle her conscience and leads her to re-visit the scene of the fatal motorbike accident. Riddled with guilt, she cautiously reaches out to the victim’s family and meets the motorcycle rider’s brother, who is also a local police officer. Maysie then forms a unique bond with the victim’s brother that quickly evolves into a steamy affair. Maysie begins to find it impossible to suppress her deep-seeded feelings of guilt and keep the truth hidden that will ultimately set them both free.
Myriad’s Kirk D’Amico will produce with Steve Norris, alongside the UK’s Apollo Productions and its partners, Pinewood Studios and VFX powerhouse Double Negative.
Alba voices a character in next week’s Escape From Planet Earth and can be seen later this year in both Machete Kills and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
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